While You Were Dead by CJ Snyder Read Free Book Online

to Craig. “What’s the problem with the sensors?”
     
    “It’s the dog. Remember Fluffy?”
     
    Max rolled his eyes. Fluffy was a tiny yapping rat, not a dog. Barely six inches off the floor. Kat had a dog like that when he’d first met her. “I remember.”
     
    “Yeah. I thought you would. Remember how we placed the sensors at two feet, so she wouldn’t set them off? Turns out Fluffy’s not only loud, she’s a jumper. Four and a half feet, if you can believe it.”
     
    Max shook his head. Spike. Kat’s little dog was Spike.
     
    Stop it!
     
    Max resolutely opened the door of his truck to rifle in the small back seat for his briefcase. He found the plans and spread them out over the driver’s seat, identifying the problem immediately. Unfortunately, solving it took minutes more, especially because Kat and her damn little dog kept popping up in front of this blueprints. Thanks to Kat, he’d been gone fifteen before he strolled back into the cafeteria. After sitting around with Miriam nearly all day, his niece was not going to be happy. He might have to take her to see Vin Diesel after all. Would Lizzie like a dog?
     
    Lizzie wasn’t there. Max frowned. Their table was just the way he’d left it, with his late lunch cooling on his tray. Lizzie had taken a couple of bites of lasagna. The newspaper was on the floor.
     
    “Bathroom,” he muttered, and settled down to eat his cold ravioli. He watched the door of the women’s room, visible across the cafeteria, and managed to eat two bites before he lost interest in food. “Damn you, Lizard. I told you to stay put.” An eerie chill played tag down his spine. Max put down his fork. He knew that feeling. Hadn’t felt it for years, but he knew it well. It didn’t belong here, in this life. Max balled up his napkin and threw it on the table.
     
    Stay put. One little request. Fifteen minutes. Sure she’d felt abandoned when he didn’t let her come with him this morning, but damn it, sometimes the kid drove him crazy. Six hours in the car with her was too much to ask, wasn’t it? Especially when Miriam, always knowing what he was thinking, insisted Lizzie stay with her. That was no excuse for her to be deliberately punishing him.
     
    He spent the next five minutes trying to tamp down the horrible feeling in his gut. The dread only grew. Two minutes later, he offered a white-aproned busgirl five bucks to haul Lizard’s butt out of the can. He watched the dark-haired girl enter the bathroom but was on his feet before the door closed behind her. Long furious strides took him to the door where he paced around a wet floor cone for sixty seconds more. What was taking so long?
     
    When the girl’s apologetic face appeared again, he stared hard into her brown eyes. Was Lizzie hiding? Had she cajoled this girl into going along with her game?
     
    The food-service worker shrugged. “No girl, sir,” she offered, but Max cut her off.
     
    “Anyone in there?”
     
    “No, sir.” The woman backed up a step, obviously alarmed and held out his five dollars.
     
    Max scowled and waved away her return offer. “Stand watch.” He flung open the door, revealing two sinks and four stalls. “Lizzie!” The doors of the stalls slammed open one at a time. All empty. Damn her! He stormed out of the bathroom and back to the table, ignoring the anxious stare of the busgirl who’d obviously heard his angry search of the bathroom.
     
    Where was she? His gut twisted. Max refused to listen. Maybe she’d forgotten something in Miriam’s room and went back to get it. Max started for the sliding doors of the cafeteria. The voice in his gut got louder.
     
    What if she didn’t?
     
    Max stopped. Turned toward their lunch table. Halted again. If he stormed into Miriam’s room and Lizzie wasn’t there. . .he couldn’t do that to his sister. But where else could Lizzie be?
     
    His cell phone. He stabbed in the speed dial for the nurse’s station and waited for a long